USA > Kansas > Crawford County > A Twentieth century history and biographical record of Crawford County, Kansas > Part 8
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When the Greenback party was organized in Crawford county the principal actors in the movement were I. G. Eastwood, Arthur Sharp. E. C. Lynch, E. W. Majors, Dwight Wilder, G. WV. Moore, F. H. Dum-
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bauld, Hugh Reid, Ephraim Holt, E. P. Pomeroy, E. R. Ridgely, S. S. Ridgely, and a few others, whose names are not known to the writer. Of these the more worthy of mention here, because of their continued and faithful work in the cause of reform, are Arthur Sharp, already no- ticed. E. C. Lynch, Dwight Wilder. J. G. Eastwood, F. H. Dumbauld, and E. R. Ridgely, the last of whom has been twice sent to Congress, and has faithfully stood by his colors except when he succumbed to the fusion element in 1902. He has helped to bear aloft the banner of re- form ever since it was raised in the county, and is as firm now as ever. While I did not agree with him on the subject of fusion I am will- ing to accord to him the meed of praise for his faithful adherence to the principles of reform and for the manly ability with which he met his opponents on the rostrum and in the house. But like many others in all the parties he is tired of politics, and is giving his attention to farming and stock raising, and has also shown wisdom in that he has taken to himself a wife to aid him in his newly chosen calling.
J. G. Eastwood has been one of the best and ablest campaigners in the county, and has done efficient service all along the line of political reform, and for his service in the campaign of 1896 the party presented him with a gold headed cane, which, he told the writer. was too fine for every-day use, and was only to be brought out on state occasions. It will probably be laid away as an heirloom to his children and his chil- dren's children.
F. H. Dumbauld was a farmer, and as such took a deep interest in economic questions, and always took the side of reform. He could not see why men who labored late and early, and who produced all the wealth of the nation, should live in hopeless poverty, while those who never earned an honest dollar should revel in luxury and leave their millions for their children to squander in riotous living. He could not
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see why ninety per cent of the wealth of the nation should be owned by two per cent of the people, while the other ninety-eight per cent should be put off with only two per cent of the wealth that they themselves had produced. These things he talked to his neighbors instead of going out as a public speaker, in which capacity he doubtless would have failed, and thus, in a quiet way, he did much to aid the cause of reform.
Another of the private but efficient laborers in the reform parties was Dwight Wilder, who, like the man just noticed, never could have succeeded as a public speaker, but who in his own way did good service, and who proved faithful to the end. He was not in the reform move- ment for office, nor for money, but from principle. and for the good of others as well as himself.
William Lawler, for many years a Republican of undoubted sin- cerity, was honored by the reporter for the Press as the accoucher at the birth of the People's party at Farlington, in 1890. However this may be, it is certain that he was an active worker in that party from the day of its birth until its untimely death in 1902. In public and in pri- vate he ceased not his efforts to make it a success, and if all its adherents had been as faithful and honest as he it might be the controlling party today instead of a thing of the past. His quondam brethren charged that he quit the Republican party for the sake of office, but if this was true he did not fare much better in his new affiliation, as the only emolu- ment he ever enjoyed was an appointment that brought him $600 a year, poor pay for the sacrifice of principles, if he made the sacrifice. Those who knew him never believed this charge. But among all the workers in the cause of reform in Crawford county there was one man whose ability never received proper recognition nor his labor proper appreciation. This man was B. D. Sanderson. now of Greenwood coun- ty. He was in every reform party that existed in the county, and was
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never an idler. Gifted by nature with an easy flow of words, he only lacked an education to make him one of the first orators of the country, and he had a most thorough knowledge of the political history of the country and of political parties, from the founding of the government till the present time. Notwithstanding his illiteracy there were but few men of any party or any calling that were a match for him in argument. and on account of his illiteracy, he always took them by surprise. as no one who heard him in common conversation would ever suspect that he possessed such a store of political knowledge. In the Grange, in the Alliance, in the Greenback party, and so on down to the People's party, lie occupied a prominent place as a public speaker and earnest worker. Ard he delighted in the work. No night was too dark and no weather too inclement to deter him from meeting an appointment, and no audi- ence was ever disappointed by his failure to put in an appearance. He is now living on a farm in Greenwood county, and although age begins to tell on him. he is still ready at a moment's notice to meet any man that has the temerity to meet him in political controversy.
One more man must claim my attention for a short time. I have already spoken of the bomb thrown into the Republican ranks in 1888 by General Percy Daniels. From that time forward the Republicans of the county had no particular love for him, but at times they dreaded him. His forensic ability did not appear in oral discussion, but where he took his pen he was clear in logic and forcible in diction, and he has so thoroughly studied the one subject-his tax theory-that no one, so far as I know, has ever been able to meet his arguments or gainsay his positions. In 1892 he was nominated for lieutenant governor by the state convention of the People's party and elected at the November elec- tion, in which capacity he served one term, being in the meantime ap- pointed a major general, and put in command of the National Guard of
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the state. While acting as commander of the state forces he was sent by Governor Lewelling to Pittsburg, where a strike of the miners, and the bringing in of colored miners to take the places of the strikers, well nigh brought on a civil war, and rioting and bloodshed had prevailed for some days. It was expected by some that he would take a partisan view of the situation and be governed in his actions accordingly, and because he did not, but acted as reason and justice dictated, some of the miners turned against him, and at the next state convention his name was left off the ticket. The strike trouble was not the only thing that operated against his re-nomination. His action in the railroad assessment board, and some other things in which he was not in full accord with the party served to lay him on the shelf for the time being, and gave him ample time to cultivate his farm and to continue his work in the graduated tax problem.
General Daniels is one of the best thinkers and ablest reasoners on political-economic questions that the state has in any party. Indeed, he does not tie to any party, but whenever the occasion calls for it he rises above party and secks "the greatest good to the greatest number." But for this independence of thought and action he might have stood much higher in the party councils, first of the Republican party, and afterwards of the People's party. All admit his honesty and his sound judgment, but his very candor is a drawback to his promotion among men who regard policy above principle.
I do not claim to have given sketches of all in any of the parties that merit a notice in these pages. Some have been omitted on account of the meager knowledge that I had of them, and others because of some flaw in their political careers that would not show to their credit if it should appear. I have tried to be faithful and true to life in all that I have given, and think that I have given enough to give a fair, if
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not a full, showing of the political history of the county. If my stric- tures on some of the men seem severe, I assure my readers and the men themselves that I have followed my best judgment "with charity for all and malice toward none." As history, including biography, is made up of many parts, when any of those parts are omitted the history is neces- sarily incomplete, and where I have given defects in the character of an individual, it is only where it affects their public or political conduct.
And now that I am nearing the conclusion of my task, allow me to say a few things in my own behalf, and I allow my readers and the public to criticise me as severely as I have criticised any whose names appear in these pages. I started out in my political career as a Liberty party man, casting my first vote for President for James G. Birney. When the Free Soil party started I went with it till the Republican party arose, and as it declared for "Free Speech, Free Press, Free Trade, Free Schools, Free Soil and Free Men." I entered heartily into its work, and stood by it through all its vicissitudes in peace and war till it showed so much duplicity in this state on the prohibition question, and had acted in such bad faith on several other matters, that I was compelled to leave it for conscience sake. and in 1884 I abandoned it and went with the Prohibitionists till 1800, when I helped to make up the People's party. Here I stood till the days of fusion, when I could stand it no longer. but stood aloof from all parties till 1902, when I divided my vote. giving part to the Prohibition party and part to the fusionists.
This is a very brief synopsis of my political history, as I have al- ways been an active worker in whatever party I affiliated with, and with tongue and pen and vote have always stood for the principles of the party. My course in Crawford county is well known, having published the Western Herald for several years. and I am proud to say that no one who read its columns had to ask. "Where is he at?" And after tak-
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ing editorial control of the Crawford County Democrat, when asked where I stood politically, I answered in the columns of the paper. "I am a Democrat of the Andrew Jackson type, a Republican of the Abraham Lincoln type, a Greenbacker of the James B. Weaver type, a Populist of the Omaha platform type. a Socialist of a very mild type, and a Prohibitionist of a very strenuous type." And such I am today. espe- cially the last. I acknowledge good in all the parties of the present day: but not enough in any of them to command my implicit support. and hence I claim the right of a rover to go where I please and vote for the men and measures which to me seem most conducive to the public good.
As regards the present work I do not claim any great literary merit for it, for although it has been under contract for several months it has been done in a great hurry and under very unfavorable conditions. Coming to a new place in the woods, without a house to shelter me and my little family, I was compelled to work hard at hard work in order. first, to secure a place of shelter, and next to have some place to write. before I could complete the work. This left me but a few days in which to perform a task that might well have occupied. a month. But having lived an active and strenuous life from childhood, and having learned to perform work that most men would shrink from undertaking, I have been able to bear up under this burden also, and I now give it to the public, believing that it is accurate in statement and both just and generous in spirit.
For facts and figures I acknowledge myself indebted to B. D. San- derson. Percy Daniels, E. R. Ridgely, The History of Kansas, and very largely the files of the Girard Press, kindly furnished me by the editor- in-chief. These parties will please accept my thanks thus publicly tendered, and. as I am a firm believer in the doctrine of reciprocity, I
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await an opportunity to render them equal service. In the meantime I crave the indulgence of the public for any shortcoming it may find in the work, as it has cost me more time and labor by far than I can hope to receive compensation for, except in the consciousness of having done my best to present them with a faithful "Political History of Crawford County, Kans."
Granniss, Ark., Oct. 31, 1903. A. G. LUCAS.
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CHAPTER IV.
MINING HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.
By Fred Henney, Mining Editor of the Pittsburg Headlight.)
The mining history of Crawford county is really the history of Pittsburg. for with the sinking of the first coal shaft in the county, on the townsite of Pittsburg, in the spring of 1877. began the growth of the town, and with the growth of the mining industry in this county has likewise grown the center of the coal industry and the metropolis of the Missouri-Kansas coal district, Pittsburg.
But the coal industry of Crawford county dates back farther than the sinking of the first mine. For years before the first coal shaft was sunk coal was taken from the surface of the earth in this county. Before the Civil war coal was taken from strip and slope workings in the southeastern part of the county. At that time the nearest settle- ments were Fort Scott and Carthage, Missouri. Teamsters dug the coal from the outcroppings on the surface, and made a livelihood by hauling it across the prairies to Carthage or Fort Scott. One of these early coal drifts was opened up in the ravine east of the present location of the vitrified brick works in Pittsburg. Coal was also stripped from the surface in a crude manner by teamsters along the old military trail which ran along the state line south from Fort Scott through this county. The pioneer settlers who made a sparse living in this section before the war took coal from the outcroppings and traded it at Fort Scott and Carthage for groceries and supplies. When the Civil war broke out a good deal of coal was hauled by teamsters to the fort at Fort Scott for
7
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army use. Most of this was obtained from coal banks along Drywood and Bone creeks in the northern edge of the county.
A. J. Georgia, who was one of the first settlers on the townsite of Pittsburg, located here in 1867, and is still a resident of Pittsburg. "When I first came here," said he. "I saw coal cropping out on both sides of a draw where the Granby switch of the Frisco now turns to .enter the vitrified brick works. I was told that the settlers had been engaged for several years taking out coal and hauling to . Carthage. Among those who were thus engaged were Frank Dosser, one of the first county commissioners, Marion Medlin, and a man named Daniels."
But so little attention was paid to the coal prospects in the county and so little did capitalists realize that there was a fortune awaiting development, that when the Missouri River, Fort Scott & Gulf Railroad was built through the county, in the memorable race from Fort Scott south to the Indian lands, the railroad company really disregarded the coal. Although the railroad company owned nearly all of the land which later became the coal belt of the county, they did not appreciate what riches underlaid the land. It was true that they knew coal cropped out of the surface and had been removed from the surface for years. but an agent who was sent here to look into the mineral prospects, reported that the coal existed merely on the surface, and that there was no probability of mining ever being profitable. And the railroad com- pany actually sold much of the land for a song to settlers, land which the successors of the railroad company were glad to buy back for $75 and $100 an acre, being then offered for sale for less than $5 an acre.
It was not long after the construction of the Gulf railroad through the county before a number of small coal companies were formed for the purpose of prospecting and mining coal from strip and slope banks along the railroad. It was not at first supposed that it would pay to
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sink a shaft. The coal could be taken from the surface too readily to make it profitable to go to the expense of sinking shafts. Girard had been laid out on the railroad survey, and it soon become the center of mining operations. Several coal companies opened headquarters in Girard, and coal was taken from the surface in strip and slope workings both north and south of Girard, along the railroad. Coal was also hauled to the railroad from the southeastern part of the county and loaded for shipment. At where Litchfield now stands strip and slope workings were opened up and quite a bit of coal removed and hauled to Girard, Cherokee, or elsewhere on the railroad for shipment.
The branch of Cow creek which flows along the south edge of Litchfield early became the scene of active coal operations, and on ac- count of the coal which cropped out along the stream was early named Carbon creek.
Here was opened up the first mining camp of the county. No shafts were sunk at first, but several strip pits were opened, and from the strip pits slopes were run along the veins, and coal operations opened on a small scale. By 1877 perhaps one hundred miners were working along Carbon creek, getting out coal. One of the early strip pits was opened by the firm of Piper & Sawyer, the latter, P. H. Sawyer, still being a resident of Pittsburg. They ran a slope in from their strip pit. Another strip pit was opened up by Tom Fields of Joplin. A Girard man named Anderson also opened a strip pit, and an Irishman named Dugan opened a slope about 1876. P. H. Sawyer was the first to operate a drift.
It was Joplin men who started the coal mining industry in Craw- ford county. The mining boom had opened in and around Joplin, with the discovery of zinc and lead, and thousands of prospectors and mining men had flocked -to the Joplin district. With the production of lead
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and zinc came a demand for fuel, and when the Joplin men began to hear that coal outcropped along the surface in this county, prospectors began to drop in here to investigate. Among the first to appreciate the importance of the coal which underlaid this section were Messrs. Moffatt and Sergeant, of Joplin, and when Colonel Edwin E. Brown, of Girard, laid before them his scheme to build a railroad southeast from a junction with the Gulf road at Girard to the zinc mines, passing through the coal fields, they put up the capital and built the road and bought hundreds of acres of land, comprising the townsite of Pittsburg, which was built up later.
Work started at once on the railroad, construction being com- menced at Girard, under Colonel Brown's personal supervision. The farmers and settlers of Baker township were especially anxious to see the railroad built through, although there was much antagonism to railroads in general, resulting from the old Joy controversy. R. E. Carlton, now a prominent real estate dealer of Pittsburg, was one of the settlers here then, and he used his best efforts to get the right of way for the road. Moffatt & Sergeant leased some land along the rail- road in Pittsburg to the Coyle brothers, Peter and Matt, of Joplin, and in the spring of 1877 they commenced putting down a shaft on the east side of Pine street, south of where the Standard Ice Company ice plant is located, a negro church standing almost on the spot of the old shaft.
There is some disagreement among pioneer miners as to whether or not this was the first shaft sunk in the county. James Vincent, who now lives at Tenth and Walnut, in Pittsburg, and who was one of the first pit bosses of the old Coyle shaft, declares that work was started on it in the spring of 1877, and that it was the first shaft to be sunk. Pro- bate Judge T. R. Jones, who was also here at that time, declares that it was not the first shaft put down, but that the gin shaft sunk by him-
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self at Litchfield for George W. Anderson, work on which was started on July 24. 1877, was sunk before the Coyle shaft. Some pioneer miners agree with Jones, others with Vincent, but all agree that the Coyle shaft was the first steam shaft sunk and the first to amount to anything. Peter Coyle was better known among the pioneer miners as "Pat" Coyle. He and his brother dug the first shovelful of dirt from the shaft, accord- ing to Judge Jones, At any rate, work was started on the shaft in 1877. and a man named Carson was the first pit boss.
Vincent, who had been working in the Piper & Sawyer slope at Carbon creek, was soon appointed foreman of the mine by the Coyles. and in August, 1877. he came to Pittsburg and took charge. He tim- bered up the shaft, which had caved in twice before and was in bad condition, and completed the mine.
"The shaft was a double entry shaft, with a double cage, and oper- ated with steam hoisting apparatus," remarked Mr. Vincent. "It was almost as well equipped as any of the shafts of to-day. The coal was loaded in cars and shipped to Girard. from where it was billed to the Gulf road and shipped to Fort Scott and to Kansas City."
The Moffatt & Sergeant road was not yet built into Joplin when the mine was put in operation. The south end of the road was then about two and a half miles from Joplin. Coyle Brothers at once com- menced to build up a camp around the mine. Pittsburg prior to that had consisted of a cross roads country store at the crossing of the roads now called Fourth and Broadway, and about half a dozen houses. Coyle Brothers built a number of houses around the mine.
The Anderson gin shaft, which Judge Jones declares is entitled to the distinction of being the first shaft to be sunk, was put down about one hundred yards north of where the bridge is now located at Litch- field. T. R. Jones, who is at present ( 1904) probate judge of Craw-
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ford county, and Jacob Morgan, who is now dead, sank the shaft for George W. Anderson, of Joplin. Judge Jones later worked in the Coyle shaft and has ever since been actively identified with the mining industry of this county, having until recently been mine foreman at Midway for the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Company.
Six months after the Coyle shaft was started in Pittsburg, Moffatt & Sergeant sank a shaft for themselves on their land, a short distance west of the Coyle shaft. This shaft was put down east of Olive street and south of the present site of the Pittsburg Boiler Works, south of the railroad. This shaft was soon abandoned. not being a success.
Fields & Chapman, another Joplin firm, were the next to enter the field, sinking a shaft about five months after the sinking of the Anderson shaft, about four hundred yards south of it. Six months later E. R. Moffatt. Jr., and a man whose proper name has been forgotten, but who was generally known as "Brigham Young." came here from Joplin and put down a slope north of the Anderson shaft.
In the meantime the Joplin railroad company built a spur north to the mining camp which had sprung up on Carbon creek. This spur left the main track at what was known for years as Litchfield Junction, and was later called the Litchfield spur. The camp was named Edwin, in honor of Col. Edwin Brown, and in 1879 the postoffice was established there, and Jeff Bedford, who had come in from Joplin that spring, and engaged in mining operations, was appointed postmaster. With Bed- ford came Jim Whitfield, of Oronogo. They sunk a shaft about 100 yards north of the bridge near the Anderson shaft. The old dump is still there. Edwin and Pittsburg were now the two camps, and one was about as large as the other. In fact Edwin was the more important mining camp, as there were mining operations being conducted all along the creek, while Pittsburg had but the one shaft.
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But Pittsburg just about this time was visited by a Wisconsin man, who changed the course of affairs, and definitely assured the permanency of Pittsburg. This man was Robert Lanyon, or "Bobbie" Lanyon, as he was best known. Mr. Lanyon had come west from Mineral Point. Wis- consin, to see what he could make in the Joplin district. There he heard of the coal prospects here, and one day he came to Pittsburg, and visited James Vincent at the Coyle shaft.
After a careful inspection of the coal prospects, Lanyon returned to Joplin, quietly acquired extensive zinc land holdings, and within a few weeks he had commenced building a block of zinc smelters here. The coal for this smelter was hauled in wagons from the Coyle shaft. At that time slack coal had no value to the operator. It was as worth- less as the ashes from a smelter, and before the erection of the smelter the Coyle brothers had found it necessary to pay men to haul away the slack which accumulated at the mine. This can be best appreciated when it is stated that last winter ( 1903-04) slack coal was sold at the mines here for $1.75 per ton. This smelter was the beginning of the great zinc industry which firmly established Pittsburg, and which resulted in the growth of the mining camp to a city with today a population of 16,000.
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